Conspiracy Theorists Darken America’s Door

From alien invasions to dark conjecture about the Kennedy assassination and 9-11, conspiracy theories have always abounded in this country. But I can’t remember a time in our history when more ugly, hurtful, provably false theories have been spread than the present.

After Roseanne Barr was fired last week for posting a racist tweet about former President Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, few took notice of the equally ugly tweet she sent out earlier that same day. It claimed billionaire and political activist George Soros was a Nazi collaborator in World War II who turned in his fellow Jews to be murdered. Although Soros was a child hiding from Nazis during the war, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Barr’s slanderous tweet.

On the conspiracy website InfoWars, Alex Jones had previously claimed Soros “stole hundreds of millions of dollars from Hungarian Jews.”

But this ugly lie pales compared to what Jones did after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones claimed the murders were actually an elaborate hoax, and the dead children and their parents were just “actors.”

Since then, mourning families have been harassed and received death threats from those demanding “proof” that their children actually died. Families of Sandy Hook victims are suing, saying Jones “perpetuated a monstrous, unspeakable lie; that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged.”

Deliberately spreading such mistruths is beyond vile. Unfortunately, one of the biggest conspiracy theorists in the nation now occupies the White House.

Aside from praising website weasel Jones for his “amazing” reputation, for years Trump spread the conspiracy that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was fake and that he was really a Kenyan. Trump also suggested that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered, and that the father of presidential primary opponent Ted Cruz was involved in the Kennedy assassination.

Meanwhile, it came as no surprise when Roseanne Barr’s show was terminated by Walt Disney Corp.’s ABC network. Be assured that virtually every major private company in the U.S. would fire an employee who spread bigotry and lies that damage its corporate reputation. Luckily for President Trump, he doesn’t have to answer to a corporate board of directors.